good widefield legacy camera lenses

[gregbradley]

Good widefield lenses seem to be a hard to find.

Samyang 24mm F1.4 is good. Nikon 28mm F2.8 AIS is fairly good but corners are too weak for me. Minolta Rokkor 24mm F2.8 is also good, a bit better than the Nikon. Still not great.

Nikon 14-24 is the one of the top lenses. Zeiss 21 Distagon is another.

There is a Canon FD 20mm F2.8 and a Minolta 20mm F2.8. Anyone used either of these? They are resonable prices.

Any other suggestions?

I read somewhere Samyang is bringing out an updated version of their 14mm F2.8 to handle the distortion. Perhaps it was just a rumour.

Any other suggested widefield lenses?
Greg.

[gbeal]

Quite a topical subject of late Greg, with the advent of the Sony A7's.
I have the A7r, and currently have also the Sony/Zeiss 35mm, plus a few LTM lenses, the Canon 50mm f1.2 and the Voigtlander 25mm f4, plus Leica Elmar 90mm.
Add to that the few Leica R series (21mm f4, 50mm F2, plus the 100mm f4 macro.
Most are stating the SLR lenses are performing well, the FD stuff especially.
I'm picking that with the D800 selling, you are aiming for a mirror-less camera?
Gary

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by gbeal

Quite a topical subject of late Greg, with the advent of the Sony A7's.
I have the A7r, and currently have also the Sony/Zeiss 35mm, plus a few LTM lenses, the Canon 50mm f1.2 and the Voigtlander 25mm f4, plus Leica Elmar 90mm.
Add to that the few Leica R series (21mm f4, 50mm F2, plus the 100mm f4 macro.
Most are stating the SLR lenses are performing well, the FD stuff especially.
I'm picking that with the D800 selling, you are aiming for a mirror-less camera?
Gary

That's right. Which of those are you finding good? Leica R 21mm F4 sounds good. I suppose it costs a bomb?

Greg.

[gbeal]

Silly as it sounds Greg, the lazy and "just shoot with it" side finds the Sony/Zeiss 35/2.8 the nicest. It's the lightest, the smallest, and it is auto everything if needed. It's even competitively priced.
The 21/4 is quite nice, older design, but OK. One I tried but haven't really hit a home run with is the Voigtlander 25/4. Nice and small, etc, but the corners are not as good as the could/should be. On an APS sensor it would be perfect.
For macro and tele work the 100/4 is stunning.
Gary

[ourkind (Carlos)]

I only bought the Zeiss 15mm 2.8 ZE Distagon yesterday so I really can't comment on its performance yet, but I'll be sorely disapointed if it doesn't live up to its reputation. And yes it costs a bomb.

Having used several widefield lenses i.e. Canon 10-20mm 3.5, Canon 16-35mm L 2.8 series 2 and the Samyang 14mm 2.8. Their distortion is harsh which meant framing a shot needed to take this into consideration as post editing software will not remove all the distortion. Additionally stars turned to bats in the corners unless the appeture was turned down, impeding the amount of light captured in a usual 20 to 30 second exposure.

Optically I was really surprised by how well the Samyang performed, as good or better than the 16-35mm however I found the manual focus very touchy making it more of a guessing game.

Greg I think it was you that planted the Zeiss seed in my head

[Poita (Peter)]

Nice lens, I used one on a shoot recently, bloody heavy though and about $3500. I would get the Nikon 14-24 instead if I had to choose, just as sharp, but the Zeiss is probably the best 15mm lens out there and you can get away with not having to correct for distortion in most cases.
I'm not usually a Zeiss fan, but this is a really good lens.

[gregbradley]

Optically I was really surprised by how well the Samyang performed, as good or better than the 16-35mm however I found the manual focus very touchy making it more of a guessing game.

Greg I think it was you that planted the Zeiss seed in my head [/QUOTE]

Yes that's right. It should be an AWESOME lens. I have seen some comparisons with Nikon 14-24 which is the usual standard widefield lenses are compared to. It was better in most regards and probably most importantly to us with regards to distortion and coma and wideopen performance in the corners. So if it beats the Nikon 14-24 it must be hot as that lens has now been around for sometime now without any real challengers.

I look forward to your results.

Greg.

[Regulus (Trevor)]

Greg the Samyang is a popular lens by all reports. However I have no personal experience of it.
However the Distagon is excellent, and although it is many years since I had a collection of Zeiss lenses I wouldn't hesitate to buy another of the older models, and am casting around for some old primes in the 28/35/100/200 size range.
I wish I could find an EOS adapter for my Zeiss 100 f2.8 that is with the Werra lens set. It is beautifully sharp with great colour.
Another lens I liked was the Kiron 24mm f2. The were an independent lens maker in Japan that also made quality laboratory optics. Back story is that designs were done by ex-nikon lens makers. Thus the name: Nikkor/Kiron [better than Kirkon or Kironk I suppose :-) ]
I am in favour of some of the Konica Hexanon range of primes also.

For what it's worth. Trev

[skysurfer]

I am also considering this lens, instead of a Canon 17-40mm f/4L, reports tell it should be a good quality. It lacks AF and automatic aperture control, but for the more advanced (astro)photographer that should not be an issue. It works even of Fullframe bodies.

Do some more people have experience with this lens ?

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by Regulus

Greg the Samyang is a popular lens by all reports. However I have no personal experience of it.
However the Distagon is excellent, and although it is many years since I had a collection of Zeiss lenses I wouldn't hesitate to buy another of the older models, and am casting around for some old primes in the 28/35/100/200 size range.
I wish I could find an EOS adapter for my Zeiss 100 f2.8 that is with the Werra lens set. It is beautifully sharp with great colour.
Another lens I liked was the Kiron 24mm f2. The were an independent lens maker in Japan that also made quality laboratory optics. Back story is that designs were done by ex-nikon lens makers. Thus the name: Nikkor/Kiron [better than Kirkon or Kironk I suppose :-) ]
I am in favour of some of the Konica Hexanon range of primes also.

For what it's worth. Trev

Thanks Trev. The Kiron sounds interesting. I know about the Samyang. The main issue with it apart from getting a good copy, is moustache distortion. I read somewhere a version 111 is being released with the distortion addressed but can't find anything to substantiate that.

Originally Posted by skysurfer

I am also considering this lens, instead of a Canon 17-40mm f/4L, reports tell it should be a good quality. It lacks AF and automatic aperture control, but for the more advanced (astro)photographer that should not be an issue. It works even of Fullframe bodies.

Do some more people have experience with this lens ?

You usually do not use AF or in camera aperture control on nightscapes as you are imaging in the dark and these things don't work. Usual setting would be 30 seconds and ISO3200/6400 and wide open. Some lenses have bad chromatic aberrations or are very soft wide open so they require stopping down to F4 of F5.6. Then that requires a longer exposure to compensate. That then requires tracking to maintain round stars. So that's really the crux of the problem. You need a low noise ISO6400 camera and an F2.8 lens of short focal length with low chromatic aberrations and low coma and little distortion.
That then becomes practically no lens. Nikon 14-24 is one but its heavy and expensive and can't take filters without expensive and large after market filter holders.

I have been doing some more research on this and here are some possible lenses that will work:

1. Canon FD 20m F2.8 (I have one on the way to me). There is also a 17mm F4.
2. Minolta Rokkor 20mm and 21mm F2.8.
3. Leica Elmarit 19mm F2.8 (more expensive but inder $1000 2nd hand) No idea about chromatic aberrations but distortion seems low.
4. Zeiss Contax (Yashica mount) makes a 21mm and I think a 17mm or 19mm. Likely to be very good but chromatic aberration would be the thing I would want to know if its ok or not.

In the film days 24-28mm was considered wide angle lens. So 20mm is rare and under 20mm is even rarer.

Greg.

[skysurfer]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

In the film days 24-28mm was considered wide angle lens. So 20mm is rare and under 20mm is even rarer.

And now for FF cameras it is still wide angle. Canon has now a 14mm f/2.8L ($2000) which was already available in the film days (FD mount) and in the seventies Nikon had a 13mm f/5.6 a very large bulky one of thousands of $$$.

So for the current days the Samyang 14, despite its moustache distortion can be a good choice. The distortion makes it unsuitable for architecture photography, but for sky and landscape photography it won't be a problem.